News and Culture Intertwined

Ask Brent: IT

I watched IT this weekend so I wouldn’t have to go to my son’s parole hearing.And though he was ultimately not granted parole, I did learn a lot about what constitutes a “bathing suit” according to AMC’s “theater-goer rules and regulations.”

Now, as far as how it compares to the original, I honestly have nothing to say;I didn’t read the book because it was kind of long and I couldn’t get past minute 9 of the old movie.That being said, I do feel I can offer some meaningful commentary on the film:

My main takeaway was that all the child-murdering kept getting interrupted by weird, prepubescent romance. What was that all about? I didn’t drive twenty minutes and pay $8.19 to watch some 12-year-old awkwardly kiss some other 12-year-old with a bloodied hand. I can do that for free in the comfort of my own bedroom.

One of my main questions is how a clown murdering people turned into a montage of a bunch of middle schoolers cleaning a bathroom so fast. Also where the fuck did the Stranger Things kid come from? And what was the deal with the lighting?Why couldn’t they just turn on the lights ever? They would definitely have just been like, “Yeah there’s totally a clown right there, I’m not gonna go down there.”

And where were the parents in all this? How did they not notice that the basement was flooded or that these kids were, like, literally never at home? And that’s not even to mention the authorities.The girl (who I’m told wasn’t even in the book at all) said that nobody else would do anything, but what evidence did they have for that?I mean, did the… large kid even bother to report this shit to the cops?

Honestly, Pennywise was doing a public service:do we really want these kids who mindlessly walk into crackhouses and split up—as though they hadn’t just collectively decided that that would be the dumbest fucking idea—to be members of society? Do we really?

But ultimately the biggest question we have to ask ourselves is what all of this meant.Was it a PSA about falling asleep in front of the TV?Was it about confronting bullies?Overcoming child traumas?Was it about Cirque du Soleil?

Or was it about overcoming our fears:spiders, menstruation, that super weird Modigliani painting, AIDS (that’s a terrible message; everyone should be terrified of AIDS)?